Стюарт Макбрайд - All That’s Dead

‘For now.’ Hardie’s face soured. ‘And only because Jane convinced them it’d look even worse to fire you.’

She held up a hand before King could say anything. ‘And don’t bother thanking me: I only did it because we can’t have people thinking we’ve been blindsided by this. We’d come across as weak and incompetent.’

King nodded, staring at his hands as Hardie sat forward.

‘But you have to understand, Frank: you’re no longer on thin ice here — you’ve gone crashing straight through. Right now you’re treading freezing water and the sharks are circling.’

A grimace from Jane. ‘And Edward Barwell is gleefully hurling chum into the water.’

Not exactly a heart-warming metaphor, but it summed things up pretty well.

A small awkward silence settled onto the room.

Finally Jane broke it. ‘What I don’t understand is why he sat there grinning through the whole thing. Surely Barwell should’ve been furious — he’s not printed his story yet, but there’s DI King telling the whole world, blowing his exclusive. But Barwell just sits there and grins .’

Logan clicked through to the next page. ‘He’s got something else. Has to. Something worse.’

She stared at him, rabbit-in-the-headlights style. ‘Oh God.’ Pointing at the phone in Logan’s hand. ‘Has he...?’

‘No, they’ve published the same front page they sent us.’ Logan turned the phone so she could see the web page, even if it was too small to read from there. ‘Went live on the website soon as the briefing started.’

‘It was premeditated, then. Soon as we screwed up, that was it.’

‘Arrrgh...’ King covered his face with his hands again. ‘I said we should’ve put the statement out first!’

Jane curled her lip at him. ‘Don’t be a revisionist dick, Frank. We’re the only friends you’ve got right now.’

Oh the delights of a happy team.

Logan put his phone away. Had a bash at soothing the waters. ‘Look, this was always going to come out sooner or later. We knew what we were dealing with.’

Hardie sat up and glared at King. ‘What does he have? What’s worse than this?’ Banging on the desk. ‘What did you do ?’

Everyone stared as King wrapped his arms around himself, rocking back and forward in his seat. Back and forward. Back and forward. Back and forward. Shaking his head. ‘I don’t know. Nothing.’

There was a knock on the door and a spotty PC stuck her head in. She threw a pained smile in Hardie’s direction. ‘Boss? The Chief Superintendent wants to see you in his office again. Said it was kinda urgent.’

‘Urgh...’ Hardie scrubbed his face with his hands. ‘All right.’ A big sigh, then he levered himself out from behind his desk and towards the door. Pausing to pat King on the shoulder as he passed. ‘If I was you, I’d get out of here before the top brass change their mind. Go see if you can achieve something.’

‘Thanks.’ King waited till Hardie’s footsteps faded down the corridor, before standing. He turned to Logan. ‘I’m going to the toilet, and then, assuming I don’t drown myself or slit my wrists, we’ll grab a car and go speak to Haiden Lochhead’s ex-wife.’

‘OK, I’ll go chase up our DNA results.’

Soon as King had shut the door behind him, Jane collapsed in her chair like a dropped jellyfish. Dangling there making groaning noises. ‘ Utter disaster.’

‘I don’t see what your problem is. Barwell was always going to publish his story, we knew that. It’s why I was assigned to support DI King. None of that’s changed. And King’s doing a good job.’ Actually, it might be best not to permanently nail his colours to that particular flagpole. Reel it back a bit. Logan shrugged. ‘You know, under the circumstances.’

She smiled and sat up. ‘Inspector McRae, I say this with the utmost respect, especially given your heroism last year...’ She took hold of his hand and gave it a squeeze, gazing deep into his eyes. ‘You’re an idiot and no one cares what you think.’

Logan stepped out into the suntrap masquerading as the Rear Podium car park. No sign of King yet. So he pulled out his phone and dialled Jeffers’ mobile. Listened to it ring for a while as he picked his way across the sticky black tarmac to his Audi.

Then, finally, the lazy sod picked up. ‘I didn’t forget, I swear, I’ve been doing them!’

That would be a first.

‘And?’

‘Er... Sorry?’

‘No, you numpty, what are the results?’

‘Oh, yes. OK, so I managed to isolate a good sample and I ran it through the database.’

Why could nobody get to the bloody point?

‘And what was the result?’

Silence.

Two seagulls fought each other for what looked like a puddle of dried sick behind a parked patrol car. Someone emerged from the mortuary and sparked up a cigarette.

And still no reply from the Nelson Street lab’s resident idiot.

‘Jeffers?’

‘Nothing. Sorry, I mean, there’s no match in the system.’

‘Oh for... Nothing at all ?’

‘Not even a cocktail sausage. Whoever she is, her DNA’s not on our database.’

‘She has to be! You don’t go from law-abiding citizen to Alt-Nat torture groupie in one easy step. She’s in there somewhere, so run it again. And keep running it, till you find something.’

‘Erm...’ His voice took on an even more ingratiating tone. ‘I’m more of a fingerprint kind of guy, to be honest. I’m really good at fingerprints! If you want fingerprints doing, I’m all over it.’

Well, at least that was something. ‘So what happened when you ran the fingerprints on the cup?’

A pause. Then, ‘But you said to do the DN... Ah.’ He cleared his throat. ‘OK. Right. I... see what I did there. Sorry?’

‘ Find something.’ Logan hung up, pinched the bridge of his nose.

Morons. Why was he always surrounded by—

‘Thought it was you.’

When he turned, there was Rennie, standing right behind him, wiggling his eyebrows. Proving the point.

Rennie pointed at the slab of concrete and glass over his shoulder. ‘Saw you from the office window.’

Swear that boy was on sodding castors.

‘ Please tell me you’ve got some good news.’

‘Kinda. At least now we know Haiden’s not a serial killer.’

What?

‘Are you insane?’

‘Nah, look at it. “The Devil makes work”: you chop off the hands.’ Rennie mimed it. ‘“Three monkeys”: see, hear, and speak no evil; you cut out the eyes, ears, and tongue.’ Another mime, then a nod. ‘Serial killers don’t do “themes”, do they? They don’t re-enact grisly murders from the Bible, or the Spanish Inquisition, or Pingu . That’s just books and TV. Real -life serial killers fantasise about one thing, then spend the rest of their lives practising and refining it. Trying to make it perfect.’

‘And this helps us how , exactly?’

A shrug. ‘Well, if Haiden’s not a serial killer, he’s doing all this to make a point. Killing people who oppose Scottish Independence. That’s your basic domestic terror—’

‘No, no, no, no! We do not use the “D.T.” words in this Division. Say it too often and poof: SPEVU appear.’

Rennie scrunched up one half of his face, as if there was a bee trapped inside his hollow-point skull. ‘It’s a terrible name, isn’t it? SPEVU. Should be EVPUS: Extremist-Violence Prevention Unit, Scotland. They should’ve asked someone good with words to name it for them.’

Morons, morons, everywhere, with not a brain to think...

Logan folded his arms. ‘Haven’t you got anything useful to do?’